IEEE Spectrum May, 2010 - 27

books
Two Beautiful Minds,
One Perfectly Rendered
A new biography of geometry genius
grigory perelman is enjoyable, but not
as successful as one of unheralded
physicist ettore majorana

O

New biographies of these
n the evening of
renegade "beautiful minds"
26 March, 1938, a
are now on bookshelves.
young Italian nuclear
Like their subjects, both
physicist boarded a ferry in
books are idiosyncratic.
Palermo, Sicily. At the time,
A brilliant Darkness:
Ettore Majorana-a working
The Extraordinary Life and
colleague of nuclear pioneer
Mysterious Disappearance of
Enrico Fermi, a friend
Ettore Majorana, the Troubled
to uncertainty principle
developer Werner Heisenberg, Genius of the Nuclear Age
by João Magueijo, in fact,
and an undisputed genius
carves out its own subgenre.
in his own right-seemed
Rarely can the phrases
poised to shake up or even
revolutionize physics. Instead, "page-turning mystery" and
"creative introduction to
he was never heard from
modern physics" be uttered
again. Some believe Majorana
about the same tome. Part
committed suicide. Others
thriller, part biography,
suspect he slipped away to
part history, part scientific
start a new life elsewhere.
primer, Darkness
Less eerily but
is a remarkable
no less strangely,
book because
in December 2005,
of Majorana's
Russian mathesingular nature
matician Grigory
and incredible
Perelman quit his
story, but also
job at the Steklov
because Magueijo
Mathematical
is a superb storyInstitute in St.
teller and, as
Petersburg. The
A Brilliant
a theoretical
preeminent genius Darkness: The
physicist at
who two years
Extraordinary
Imperial College
earlier proved the
Life and
London, an ideal
Poincaré conjecture, Mysterious
Disappearance
biographer of
one of the greatest
of Ettore
Majorana.
(In
problems in mathMajorana,
the interest of
ematics, simply
the Troubled
Genius of the
full disclosure,
stopped working.
this reviewer
He reportedly hasn't Nuclear Age
By João Magueijo; Basic
once worked on
done any math since Books, 2009; 280 pp.;
and today lives with US $27.50, ISBN: 978-0- a television pilot
about cosmology
his mother.
465-00903-9
26

NA * iEEE SpEctrum * mAy 2010

Poincaré (1854-1912)-are
hosted by Magueijo, for the
outlined sparingly and in
Science Channel.)
soft focus. So the chapters
From its first pages,
that discuss Soviet-era
Darkness grabs the reader
mathematics as a kind of
with the grand mystery
ersatz samizdat for would-be
at its core-that strange
dissidents offer no fascinating
night in 1938. It's no spoiler
historical digressions but
to say that it never finds a
merely teasers
definitive answer;
that leave a reader
Magueijo captivates
yearning for more.
the reader by
As a nonmathemanavigating the tale's
tician, I came away
historical, scientific,
with an unsatisand biographical
fied curiosity about
currents-at turns
the very thing that
contemplative and
makes Perelman fit
brooding like its
for a biography: the
subject, acerbic and
mathematical brilcheeky like its author. Perfect Rigor: A
Genius and the
liance of his proof.
Not so
Mathematical
To be sure,
surprisingly for
Breakthrough
Gessen elegantly
people working
of the Century
By Masha Gessen;
sets the stage,
in such highly
Houghton Mifflin
revealing
abstract fields,
Harcourt, 2009; 256 pp.;
the Poincaré
both biographical
US $26.00; ISBN: 978conjecture's linsubjects suffered
0-15-101406-4
eage from Euclid
from personality
to modern-day topology. But
disorders that probably put
even here, there's not a sinthem somewhere on the
gle diagram or illustration to
autism spectrum. Rendering
help make sense of the many
such characters sympathetic
abstruse (but still geometis no easy task. But Magueijo
rical!) underlying concepts.
makes Majorana, as well
Ultimately, I learned more
as the physics he pioneered,
about the Poincaré proof
approachable and engaging.
from a Wikipedia entry.
In Perfect rigor: A
Near the end of Perfect
Genius and the Mathematical
rigor, mathematician Jim
breakthrough of the Century,
Carlson addresses the book's
author Masha Gessen
author about Perelman's
does not similarly succeed.
oftentimes murky proofs.
Although her subject never
"There were many methods
gave her an interview, she
and ideas," Carlson says. "It's
clearly talked with nearly
always hard to communicate
everyone else in his puzzling
these to a general audience,
life, and her reconstruction of
but I hope you can do that
Perelman makes Perfect rigor
when you write your book."
an enjoyable narrative. But
In the final analysis,
all too often she skips over
A brilliant Darkness fulfills
the mathematics in favor of
Carlson's conjecture, while
gumshoe reporting.
Perfect rigor does not.
Core subjects-topology,
geometry, and Jules Henri
-Mark Anderson
spectrum.ieee.org
http://spectrum.ieee.org
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum May, 2010
